Anisotropic nanostructured SmCo5 bonded magnets fabricated by magnetic-field-assisted liquid phase processing

Abstract In present study, surfactant assisted ball-milling method was applied to prepare SmCo5 nanoflakes, which were then magnetically aligned and warm compacted with a liquid binder to make bulk anisotropic SmCo5 bonded magnets. Warm compaction with magnetic-field-assisted liquid phase processing can decrease the viscosity of the binder to enhance the alignment of the magnetic nanoflakes, and thus can produce high density magnets, providing a novel method to fabricate anisotropic bonded magnets. The magnetic properties, microstructure, and crystal alignment of both nanoflakes and bonded magnets are systematically investigated. The X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and vibrating sample magnetometer (VSM) characterizations suggest that the obtained liquid phase bonded magnets exhibit enhanced magnetic anisotropy compared with those without magnetic field alignment and the solid phase bonded anisotropic magnets. The remanence of anisotropic phenol formaldehyde (PF) bonded magnets (4.43 kG) is higher than isotropic bonded magnets (3.76 kG), and the energy product of bonded magnets increases from 3.4 MGOe to 4.8 MGOe under the effect of the magnetic field.